old XTA

Dead.Rabit · Post by **Dead.Rabit** » 04 Sep 2007, 07:27

hello, i miss XTA, how it used to be.

units used to be devestating and worked pretty well together. but several years, several hundred XTA developers, and several billion "omg unit xyz is so overpowered" topics later

i feel that everything has been neutered.

looking over the current balance files.. everything is dripping with quick-fixes. so my plan is this, to take old XTA balance files and cram them into new XTA graphics and format.

however i was wondering if anyone knows of where i can find the old spring, ive tried FU, and found SE0.95, its in .gp3 format.

so the golden question is, how do i unpack this mod format? is it similar to todays?

thanks alot
D.R

yuritch · Post by **yuritch** » 04 Sep 2007, 10:18

gp3 is in OTA hpi format, hpiviewer should be able to unpack it. Look for HPI Viewer at FileUniverse (probably somewhere like that)

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 04 Sep 2007, 12:29

what units have been nerfed to your dissatifaction?

Dead.Rabit · Post by **Dead.Rabit** » 04 Sep 2007, 12:37

tbh all of them.

i tried once before to make a rebalance of XTA, it didnt work so well, i was going for maths to figure out the unit cost, ended up being far beyond my mathematical talent.

i thaught it would be interesting to see how different it has become, i found this yesterday, not sure who wrote it or when.

(full version: http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/XTA)

What makes XTA Special, Unique & Addictive?
XTA has an authentic TA feel, with no turbo charged easy fix solutions; player must rely on forethought & tactics rather than mass spam against mass spam.

heheh but thats really the best reason ive got.
D.R

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 04 Sep 2007, 19:22

I invite you to play alongside the current XTA clans in team games or 1v1 or watch any replays of half decent players. the closest we got to spam was xta v9 beta 2 and it got shot in the head early on. trying single unit spam of any sort against a halfdecent player is bending over for the soap tbh

AF · Post by AF » 04 Sep 2007, 20:59

Error logical fallacy detected

If every single unit has been nerfed then that means the net effect is zero.

Its like saying that "oh nos the Russians have been made half as powerful and so too have the Americans, oh no on side is going to be overpowered" erm, theyre still just as powerful as each other.

Erom · Post by **Erom** » 04 Sep 2007, 22:00

Unless it was just the attack powers that were nerfed. Assuming the same movement rates and health bars, it would be easier to, for example, run past defenses, and it would take longer to kill structures...

But yeah, if all values were nerfed in proportion, that would be the same as doing nothing.

Linebacker · Post by **Linebacker** » 04 Sep 2007, 22:15

AF wrote:Error logical fallacy detected

If every single unit has been nerfed then that means the net effect is zero.

LOL. Don't you think this banner is a bit harsh? He didn't mean it this way, and probably you know it. But you act like you don't. Though he's of course very unspecific about what values he thinks have been changed for negative effects, but surely he didn't mean all values (attack and hitpoints) of all units have been lowered by the same degree.

Tobi · Post by **Tobi** » 04 Sep 2007, 22:27

And even then the mod's gameplay may change severely because you didn't nerf buildtime, metal & energy costs, accuracy, speed, acceleration, brakerate, etc. etc. (e.g. nerfing DPS of everything by the same amount gives a mod where units live longer..., nerfing hitpoints gives a mod where units live shorter)

You'd have to apply scaling laws to nerf every single unit in a mod with a zero net result. And when you try that, I'm sure you'll find inconsistencies in the units that make creation of such a scaling law impossible.

(Ofc you have the exceptional cases like Erom mentioned, but in the general case nerfing all units HAS a net result.)

Dead.Rabit · Post by **Dead.Rabit** » 04 Sep 2007, 23:31

ok heres an example. comparing the 0.95 SE to 9.1
metal cost and energy cost differ greatly (nerf/boost seemingly randomly), but no-one changed the build times to match these changes.

if your playing against core every player knows to have some contingency plan for when the small army of pyros come.

and that an arm player is more likely to go vehicle if theyre not confident that they can win with lvl1

every unit has been nerfed differently, and by different amounts, also some units recieved boosts.

the only global change was a general increase in sight range.

i would be a little more specific but im only through 60 of the 300 or so .fbi files. and i havnt touched weapons yet.

might add some changes of my own, i was thinking of a blanket accuracy decrease, then making the commander a targeting upgrade (istargetingupgrade=1)

and also ive always wanted too make all the factories the same cost.

but its still early days, for the moment im just going to make a graphics update of 0.95-SE

kinda intreagued as to how it will turn out.

either way both 0.95SE and 9.1 are and were perfectly playable mods.
D.R

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 04 Sep 2007, 23:31

AF wrote:Error logical fallacy detected

If every single unit has been nerfed then that means the net effect is zero.

Its like saying that "oh nos the Russians have been made half as powerful and so too have the Americans, oh no on side is going to be overpowered" erm, theyre still just as powerful as each other.

Nerfing every single unit may make for equal balance still... but that doesn't guarantee that gameplay stays interesting. You can nerf one unit's cost and another unit's HP, so while we at one point might have had a cheap spammy unit vs an expensive tank, we now have 2 boring medium cost units.

Balance is only half the battle in game design, to say the least. 1 game with all buffed units vs one game with all nerfed units doesn't necessarily mean equal quality games.

FoeOfTheBee · Post by **FoeOfTheBee** » 05 Sep 2007, 00:58

I recommend starting with XTA .66 SE, which was the last version before the pimped edition I believe, and also the last version balanced by SJ.

I'll play it if you make it.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 05 Sep 2007, 05:25

FoeOfTheBee wrote:I recommend starting with XTA .66 SE, which was the last version before the pimped edition I believe, and also the last version balanced by SJ.

I'll play it if you make it.

QFT, that was a frigging awesome XTA release for the most part.

BrainDamage · Post by **BrainDamage** » 05 Sep 2007, 12:40

take into account that even if you'll use the same tags & values of the old mod, it will probably still not feel the same; the engine has changed over the time (the range tag is a very good example) and you might have to do few compatibility changes who might affect ballance slightly

also, maybe bugfixes and added feature changed the old behaviour in a non revertable way, making the converting task even harder to accompilsh; you might also want to take a look at the new features because maybe there is a more efficient way to code something while maintaining the same functionality.

good lock at getting it working

Dead.Rabit · Post by **Dead.Rabit** » 05 Sep 2007, 14:49

after a few hours searching the oldest release i could find was 0.95 SE, unless someone is willing to upload 0.66 SE i will have to settle with 0.95

i dont know whether or not i remember 0.66, it might be a little before my time.

for the BETA release ill probably search for an older version of spring too check for any differences.

there are some changes that i'd like to enforce but until ive converted everything ill make no such changes. =]

D.R

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 05 Sep 2007, 21:23

lol, this is BS

Sleksa · Post by **Sleksa** » 05 Sep 2007, 21:25

0.66 SE FTW

tombom · Post by **tombom** » 05 Sep 2007, 21:42

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:lol, this is BS

the reason xta sucks is because everyone who balances it now sucks

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 05 Sep 2007, 23:47

tombom wrote:
1v0ry_k1ng wrote:lol, this is BS
the reason xta sucks is because everyone who balances it now sucks

the reason why they suck is because it is the will of Allah that they suck

Noruas · Post by **Noruas** » 06 Sep 2007, 01:33

Felix the Cat wrote:
tombom wrote:
1v0ry_k1ng wrote:lol, this is BS
the reason xta sucks is because everyone who balances it now sucks
the reason why they suck is because it is the will of Allah that they suck

Praise Allah,

IK everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if it denies logic or offends people >_>, this is also a anti-xta infested forum, so you can not bash anyone cause they will come in the swarm of rebuttal's. its better to keep your fingers tied.

Although... on the other hand, i guarantee 0.66 anti air swarms are the way to go. xta v0.66 to v9.1 may seem random since each version was built on other predecessors versions, rather then jumping from 0.66 to 9.1

Spring RTS Engine

old XTA

old XTA

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